Ayaka Yorihiro (頼廣 采佳)
she/her
Gates 333 [CS3110 - Spring 2026]
Unnamed Bowers Building 460 [PhD Student Office]
ayaka@cs.cornell.edu
Github
Office Hours [Gates 333]: Tuesdays 10:30-11:30am, Wednesdays 2:30-3:30pm
CS 3110 students and course staff - Please schedule appointments with me here.
About
I am a sixth-year PhD candidate in the Department of Computer Science at Cornell University working with Adrian Sampson in the Capra research group. I received a BA in Computer Science and Music from Swarthmore College in May 2020, where I was advised by Zachary Palmer.
I am generally interested in Programming Languages and Software Engineering. More specifically, my research explores ways to help programmers better understand and find bugs in their code. At Swarthmore, I studied context model designs and their effects on static higher-order program analyses. Some of my time at Cornell was spent tackling challenges in Runtime Verification, a dynamic analysis technique to check program executions against formally specified properties. These days, I'm working on tools for hardware development that take inspiration from software engineering.
Pronounciation Guide: My first name can be pronounced as either "eye-AH-ka" (most common) or "AH-ya-ka" (closer to the Japanese intonation). A nice work-around in pronouncing my last name is to say "You're a hero" fast.
News
Research
Publications
[PDF] [Website]
Preprint
Teaching Experience
🏆 are courses where I won an Outstanding Teaching Award!Cornell University
Instructor:
- CS2110: Object-Oriented Programming and Data Structures [SU24]
Teaching Assistant:
- CS2110: Object-Oriented Programming and Data Structures [FA23, SP24]
- CS5154: Software Testing [FA21🏆, FA22]
Swarthmore College
Teaching Assistant:
- CS73: Programming Languages [SP20]
- CS46: Theory of Computation [SP20]
- CS21: Introduction to Computer Science [FA18]
Grader:
Service
- I am a Czar for Cornell CS's PhD Mentoring Program!
- I am a Czar for the Cornell PL group's webpage!
- I am on the Artifact Evaluation Committee for TACAS '26!
- I co-organized the Joint UT-Cornell Software Engineering Seminar in Summer 2022.
- I was a student panelist for Cornell CS's 2022 Admitted Students Day.
- I co-organized Cornell CS's 2021 Admitted Students Day.
Featured Posts
What is Runtime Verification? [Jun '25]
So I taught a CS course over the summer... [Sep '24]
2024 CRA-WP Grad Cohort for Women Report [May '24]
Grad School Application Tips from a Swat CS alum [Nov '20]
Check out the rest of my posts here!
Miscellany
Fun Facts
- Outside CS, I like to play the viola, play tennis, sing, and bake! I am also a big fan of dogs. I enjoy listening to Official HIGE DANdism, Ado, and NOMELON NOLEMON. I am currently reading Newcomer by Keigo Higashino.
- I am a member of the wonderful Ithaca Community Orchestra where I've played the viola, the triangle, the güiro, and tom-toms!
- My undergrad thesis in Music was written about Johann Nepomuk Hummel, a composer contemporary of Beethoven, and his role in cultivating the improvisatory Fantasie and Potpourri musical genres. You can read it here.
- A performance that I did with some amazing people was featured in a video on Swarthmore's youtube channel!
- The full first movement is featured here, accompanied by a rare publically available picture of me playing a musical instrument.
- I have perfect pitch! This means that I can identify musical notes without any references.
- If you take the first letter off of my last name, it becomes an element of a nonregular language - the language of palindromes!
Check out some of my other non-CS related posts here!